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Today I read on slashdot that U2, after having an early version of their record released on the Internet illegally, they are prepared to release their record completely on iTunes if it is stolen again and make it available in hard copy soon after. I just don't see the point...

I am happy to make money, especially doing something I love. When we get paid for making music, it is a pretty amazing experience because you are getting money for having fun and being creative. At the same time, I have felt feelings of frustrations when we are not paid according to our efforts. Every time I have felt as though I was getting the short end of the stick I always realize that getting paid that 25 extra dollars is just not worth it. My goal is not make tons of money but rather to put out good music that people can enjoy. It makes me wonder what U2 does it for.

It is funny because you see bands get some success and just blow all their money on stupid crap. They don't realize that the record company that just gave them all this money, expects them to pay that money back. For those that then make enough to cover the advances and recording time costs, you still must make an effort to budget your funds because music is not the most stable of careers. Since most bands never even get the luxory of this kind thing, why then are bands like U2 not more gracious to their fans regarding their music.

If a band really believes in making music that they enjoy and others enjoy, then allowing people to download a record seems like a nice thank you for all the $60 ticket prices they have to deal with to pay for ZooTV or whatever it was called. My point here is that if a band wants to make money on their music it is not about control. Making music a career is not about controling your music so you can squeeze every last cent out of it. It is making good music people enjoy. There have been tons of records that I had as mp3s or oggs that I still bought the actual record. I support those bands and I want them to get my money. I see those bands live and buy a t-shirt. If a band is worried that their "fans" are not going to buy the record because they can download it on p2p networks, they should face the facts that those people are not really fans and their music is note that important to people.

The other side is that you see bands like radiohead who put out a record that is not just the music but rather an entire work of art. The insert and packaging is just as exciting and artistic as the music. I didn't buy the special Kid A edition with a 40 page booklet for $50 because I didn't have the money, not because I didn't want to have it. The idea is here, musicians can make their money by making their album desireable and special, again, less of a "product".

Music should be an art, a mixing of form and function in which the glory is in the balance. It shouldn't be a product like cereal.

I have a moment b/c I am uploading a bunch of crap to a server. Things have been feeling like uploading files. I have been tired, slow and just generally crappy, yet chugging along. The biggest thing is that I am tired. I have been on the worst sleep schedule I think I have ever had. Going to bed at 6:00 am and waking up at 3:00 pm is not the way to go. Other than the sleep being a problem, things have been going well. UME has been getting shows together for tour and web development has been cruising along. I am a little burned out but it is alright. Blogging always seems more exciting when I am bored with web development. This is the same for games and other generally useless activities. Everyone has to waste a little time sometimes...

We played a really great party the other day with our good friends The Kants. It was easily one of the best shows we have ever played. The thing I liked the best about it all is that it just seemed as though everyone was a friend. There were two bands from Austin that were added to the show as well, A Tiger Named Lovesick and Sound Team. They had a show at Fat Cats that got cancelled because of some double booking/laziness on someone's part. A few calls later, they were at the party and playing the best show of the evening. They even donated money for the Kants and us which was well beyond necessary. A very good night. A special thanks goes out to Chris and Eric who put the show on and were more than mere hosts, but rather, masters of ceremony in their expert skill at making the night worry free and fun for all.

I have been working on a project lately and I have made the decision to try and use an object oriented design. What that means... I am not exactly sure. The first thing I started with was that instead of using functions to do the brunt of the work I would make an effort to create classes to take care of my processing needs. The next thing I wanted to avoid like the plague was one main page that took all the requests. I know this is a popular method that can be seen in the many cold fusion programming circles as well as with many php apps. I think it is a good thing to learn but it gets to be a headache in the end if it is anything but a simple program.

The other detail I wanted to get away from relied on having many different includes based on what needed to be done. This is a bit more difficult than my main page method, because it is just so darn easy. Each file becomes like an object in itself and does what it does in a clean and simple way. I have seen many many projects use includes as a means of organization and I have no real qualms with it. This makes it extremely hard to let it go.

Knowing what I don't want to do does not do much to give me a good idea of what I am actually going to do. After some testing and working out some ideas I hit irc to see what others had to say. I didn't really have a good question for anyone so it was a kind of shot in the dark strategy to see what people said about different aspects of php and object oriented design. One helpful chatter led me to look at php patterns, which is a method that looks for patterns in what code does as a means of creating efficient classes. While this was not much practical help, it made it clear that others have been where I was before and had come to positive conclusions that they can actually use. This was a good sign.

After reading a bit of a few articles I noticed a few mentions of a factory method which seemed to make sense. I found a small article that merely gave a brief explanation and it really made sense. A class is written that handles everything and calls other classes based on what is needed. It is really like a filter that directs information and actions to the appropriate authorities. I have not become an expert, but it did give me some ideas of how I could organize things and work with them that I thought I would try.

I made a page to update a database and create some forms and while it is not the easiest to understand, I think I made a bit of a step forward in my understanding of object oriented concepts. One thing someone said in irc is that it really just takes a lot of experience. I am seeing that this is very true. My first page (I decided to keep basic functions handled by one page, calendars by calendars.php, profile.php for profiles, etc...) went kind of crappy but the next page was 5 times as good and much better code. I am sure it is still not great but it is a start. Wish me luck.